Satellite News

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that it has received two contracts from the Canadian Space Agency to define critical technologies and assess potential contributions that Canada could make to future space exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

Space Systems/Loral (SSL) announced that it was selected to provide a satellite to PT. Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (BRI). The SSL-built satellite will make BRI the first bank in the world to launch a communications satellite, and will provide a dedicated platform for banking connection services for the people of Indonesia.

Millennium Space Systems announced that its Disaggregated Weather Satellite Pathfinder (DWSP) spacecraft, under design contract to the USAF Space & Missiles Center’s Defense Weather Systems Directorate, has passed an important milestone design review.

The ISS Progress M-23M resupply ship redocked to the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module Friday at 1213 UTC after a 48-hour venture away from the complex to enable Russian flight controllers to test its upgraded Kurs automated rendezvous system.

Airbus Defence and Space is preparing for the launch of KazEOSat-1 (formerly known as DZZ-HR), which is due to lift off on 28 April 2014 into low Sun-synchronous orbit (about 700 km from Earth) on-board a Vega launcher from the European spaceport in Kourou (French Guiana).

Airbus Defence and Space has been selected as sole prime contractor to develop, construct and launch the first Earth observation optical satellite system for Peru, with the support of the French government.

Over the last year, engineers have been testing and piecing together the multitude of components that make up Sentinel-3. The recent arrival of the infrared radiometer is a milestone in the exacting process of building this upcoming Copernicus mission.

The first of five instruments that will fly on JPSS-1, NOAA’s next polar orbiting environmental satellite, successfully completed pre-shipment review last week. The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) will be on board the JPSS-1 satellite mission scheduled to launch in early 2017.